"Well, well, if it isn't The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Miss me already, brother?" Mycroft's smirk was truly unbearable.
His immense foyer was intimidating in its beauty, with rich mahogany bathed in sunshine from called skylights. Overall, the entrance of the house - and undoubtedly the rest of it - suited the intent of its inhabitant: to make you feel small.
"Really now, you're going soft on me, Sherlock," he continued. "You've only been dead for twelve days, and you're already getting lonely." He eyed Molly critically, and she felt herself shrink under his gaze. "You've brought your goldfish along, I see."
Molly cringed at the comment and the self-loathing it reenforced. Truly, she thought, next to Sherlock she may as well have been a goldfish. She was always wide eyed and gaping at him, never able to say an intelligent thing. Her eyes burned as she looked to the floor.
Sherlock glared with an intensity that caught Mycroft slightly off guard. The dangerous flash in his eyes vanished quickly, however, replaced by a false air of boredom. The elder brother filed this away in his mind.
"Fifteen, actually, and I've always thought of Molly as more of a feline. More intelligent and certainly prettier than some bulgy-eyed pond dweller." Molly blushed slightly and Sherlock made a face somewhere between a smile and a sneer. "Come to think of it, Mycroft, wasn't that your handle in Preparatory?"
"Hardly," the older man scoffed. "You may have been regarded as an outcast, but I have always had respect."
"Oh, that's right, it wasn't a goldfish they compared you to. It was a frog."
Mycroft's smirk turned into a scowl and he quickly turned on his heel, following the gorgeous inlays of the floor toward his kitchen.
"You'll find the key on the end table," he called out over his shoulder as the distance spread between them. "Do try not to get shot at so often, Sherly. Mummy worries, you know."
Sherlock turned abruptly to Molly, swaying slightly as the glint of mischief in his eyes flashed brightly. "He was always very proud of his flippers. Terribly broken up, though, when the swim team stole his trousers and made him walk through the halls in his tie and webbed feet."
"That never happened!", they heard being called out indignantly from down the hall. Molly choked back a laugh and Sherlock's grin reached an alarming level.
"Burnt all his speedos and bathing caps to a crisp. Been a shell of a man ever since."
"Sherlock!"
"Well, a rather large, stuffed shell. He drowns his sorrows in cake now rather than the pool."
"SHERLOCK BLOODY HOLMES!"
The devil snatched the unmarked key from its allocated space and ushered his feline out the door. "So long, Mycroft!", he called through the foyer. "Don't spoil your dinner."
Molly burst into laughter as they shut the door behind them, and Sherlock smiled down at her. "Oh, Sherlock, that was marvelous," she sighed, with a smile on her lips as the wind played with her hair.
Sherlock had always wished he could be invisible: seeing everyone and everything, being everywhere; but with such a fluid, stealthy grace, that no one would ever know unless he wanted them to. The wind had subsequently earned a bit of childish envy from the detective as the years passed. But never had he wanted to be the force of nature so badly as he did in that moment.
It tousled her long hair enticingly, taunting him. Daring him to try and touch her. Her nose was pink from the cold snap starting, her Bambi eyes glossy and warm. He found himself cursing the air, knowing he could never feel her as intimately as the wind did. It rushed around her passionately, kissing her face and caressing every inch of her. What the devil am I thinking?
"Sherlock?" His lip twitched as she stepped closer, concern crossing her features. Sentiment is a defect and a disease. Attraction is a downfall. Look at what happened with The Woman. Get a hold of yourself, man.
Her eyes stayed on his as she instinctively reached out to him.
Don't.
She stopped, a hand hovering millimeters from his chest.
Don't come any closer.
Molly blushed and put her hand down, looking away from him. Sherlock blinked, slightly startled. His chest ached peculiarly. The ghost of her near-touch haunted his skin, an elusive sensation he kept reaching for but could never completely feel. Her eyes shifted uncomfortably from the street to her feet and back again, and he grew frustrated.
Why did you stop?
She glanced at him, and he was given the unnerving feeling that she could read his thoughts. He raised his arm to summon a cab that was approaching, and they climbed in silently as it rolled to a stop. "William," she said quietly, her soft voice invading his thoughts. He came out of his reverie with a start, staring at her with a dim awareness that the automobile hadn't moved. "What of the bags?"
His mouth twitched as he recalled the suitcases he'd left on the sidewalk. He filed away his reason for the lapse in memory as irrelevant. "Right."
